Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 April 23

= April 23 =

Chinese language
How tough it is to learn Chinese? For a beginner, how long will it take to learn basic Chinese for everyday communication? --Yoglti (talk) 03:42, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The National Virtual Translation Center quotes the Foreign Services Institute of the American Department of State as classifying Mandarin Chinese among the most difficult languages for native English speakers to learn (alongside Arabic, Japanese, Korean, and Cantonese, not that you asked), at about 2200 class hours required to attain a reasonable proficiency. Evanh2008 (talk&#124;contribs) 04:14, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * First, define 'reasonable proficiency'. Second, it depends on the learner, the learner's motivation, the teacher and a large amount of other things that make 'how tough' unquantifiable. The question was not asked as 'for an English speaker', but we will go with that, considering the question was asked in English. I actually found Chinese to be one of the easiest languages to learn, for me, personally. The word order is very similar to English (unlike Japanese, Arabic, and Korean) and the pronunciation is not difficult. A lot of people say they have difficulty with the tones, but, they vary from place to place - even villages within a couple of miles of each other will use different tones for various words. The most difficult part about learning anything is to start learning it, and stop asking how hard it is. Sorry - just simple truth.  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  05:59, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I was reading this site and found to learn Chinese, I have to memorize at least 1000 characters. This is most difficult part in learning Chinese. English has only 26 alphabets. If I memorize 4 to 5 characters per day, I will learn 150 characters per month. So it will take over 6 months to memorize the characters only. I also fear I will forget or mix up the characters. --Yoglti (talk) 06:21, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * In my school, we did Chinese and Japanese, and had to learn both traditional characters and simplified characters, and ones that the Japanese made up. When I was at school in China, I found that people just made up the characters (based on a radical and a pronunciation). It's not that hard.  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  06:26, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * And, 'knowing' Chinese characters is not about 'memorising' them, it is more about knowing why they are written like that. Any Chinese teacher who is worth the money he gets paid will show you that.  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  06:29, 23 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Depending on why you want to learn it, you may not have to learn any characters at all. If you want to be able to read and write, of course you need to; but if you only want to be able to talk to people, it is not necessary to go to the effort of learning the script at all. --ColinFine (talk) 11:55, 23 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Questions like "how tough will it be to learn how to ride a bike" are self-defeating. If you have the reason, desire, and opportunity to do it, go ahead and do it. I have never heard anyone complain he wished he hadn't learned a difficult language after the fact.  And if you really want tough, consider the Blackfoot language, Ubykh language, Aleut language, Navajo language, or Georgian language. μηδείς (talk) 16:57, 23 April 2013 (UTC)


 * As others have said, it depends on what you mean by 'every day communication' (does it mean simply asking directions and ordering food in restaurants or is it a basic conversation around the watercooler). And, of course, it depends on how dedicated the student is, and how easily the student picks up new languages. (Tough that, of course, goes for all languages.) Personally, I don't have much experience with Chinese, so I can't really say whether it's a hard or easy language to learn. However, if you are planning to add it to your resume when applying for jobs (it is, after all, the fad language today) you will probable have to spend a lot of time and effort in acquiring it. I have come across this article by someone learning Chinese, who laments that even after six years, he is still not able to read and fully understand a Chinese text. V85 (talk) 17:26, 23 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I am a native speaker of American English and believe (and have been told by others) that I have a knack for languages. Here is my experience.  Before a trip to Italy, I studied Italian for 4 months, spending maybe 4 hours per week with audiorecordings (including from Pimsleur).  After 4 months, I could carry on very basic conversations and understand, for example, announcements in train stations.  Before a recent trip to China, I studied Mandarin for 16 months, again spending maybe 4 hours per week listening to audio or speaking with a tutor.  (For 6 of those months, I worked one-on-one 3 hours per week with a tutor.)  After 16 months, my Mandarin ability was about at the same level as my Italian ability after 4 months, so for me, Mandarin was four times as difficult as Italian, in terms of time spent learning just the spoken language.  Over those 16 months, I spent an additional 6 hours per week, roughly, teaching myself the Chinese script.  During that time, I memorized about  1400 characters.  As KageTora says, to learn the characters, you don't just memorize them. You really need to understand how they are formed including the phonetic and semantic values of their parts, though knowing those things makes them easier to memorize.  Working for 6 hours per week reading texts, doing writing exercises, and using digital flashcards (from Pleco), I learned slightly less than 100 characters per month.  You can't just learn new characters.  You also have to practice characters you've already learned through reading exercises and/or flashcards, or you will forget them. The 1400 characters that I learned were pretty useful for reading signs and menus.  (I had focused on characters needed in those contexts.)  However, 1400 characters are not nearly enough to read most Chinese texts. Marco polo (talk) 19:17, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I think people vary hugely in their ability to learn languages. I have been trying to learn Japanese for several years at maybe 5-10 hours per week on average, and I am still totally hopeless, yet other people say they reach a good proficiency after a year or two at the same level of study. 86.179.115.160 (talk) 01:07, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

"Two Dragons Disputing For a Pearl" (Chinese language)
I've found the terms "Two Dragons Disputing For a Pearl", "Two Dragons Disputing Over a Pearl", "Pair Dragons Chasing Pearl", "Two Dragons Playing With a Pearl", etc., which refer to an act of the dragons in Chinese art as in the pictures below. So, is there any such term in Chinese, or how do you call such act of the dragons in Chinese? Thank you so much. --Aristitleism (talk) 20:26, 23 April 2013 (UTC)


 * This motif seems to be described as 二龙争珠 or èr lóng zhēng zhū. Marco polo (talk) 20:35, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I think 二龍戲珠 (èr lóng xì zhū) or 雙龍戲珠 (shuāng lóng xì zhū) is more common, but they all mean pretty much the same thing. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:07, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * (Also known, colloquially, as "皮皮虾打篮球" "mantis shrimps playing basketball".) --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:18, 24 April 2013 (UTC)


 * BTW, in English I'd say "fighting" rather than "disputing" here. StuRat (talk) 17:52, 24 April 2013 (UTC)


 * The term 'disputing' ('Two Dragons Disputing For a Pearl') is found in an article about Chinese secret societies (page 79) by William A. Pickering, published in 1878 by the Royal Asiatic Society. However, thank everyone :) --Aristitleism (talk) 19:32, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The three translations refer to three alternative verbs used in Chinese language descriptions. Of these, 爭 = disputing over, though, as StuRat correctly points out, it should more idiomatically be translated as "fighting over" or "fighting for" - I can only assume the translator chose this wording for literal exactitude. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:44, 26 April 2013 (UTC)